Reinhard Furrer, the third German astronaut to fly in space. His training as a scientific astronaut began in 1983 along with Ulf Merbold, Ernst Messerschmid and the Dutchman Wubbo Ockels. Messerschmid and Ockels lifted off together with Furrer on 30 October 1985 for the Spacelab D1 mission. The three astronauts flew into space as payload specialists and performed a total of 76 experiments during their week-long mission in the European Spacelab module. Furrer died on 9 September 1995 in a plane crash during a flight show at the Johannisthal Airfield, Berlin.